It was her intention, in fact, to travel to the latter within the next month to meet with the body of representatives of those cities at the Rotunda in the city of Tyrsis, there to propose a fresh alliance—one that she intended would benefit them more than her. At least, it would do so in the short run and on the surface. Lay the groundwork for what you really wanted to accomplish by instigating a plan of misdirection, then wait for the right time to reveal your true intentions.
It was an approach she had learned from various members of her family through hard lessons witnessed and suffered. They were a rapacious, dangerous brood, the Orles—and none more so than those who were closest to her. Her father had murdered his first two wives and a brother. Her stepmother was an accomplished poisoner who was every inch a match for her father and who had helped him to dispatch the wife before her. Their lives thereafter were spent in large part keeping close watch on each other, although their union somehow endured.
Her brother was a monster.
She and her brother were the children of the previous wife and kept alive mostly because their father insisted on heirs and his present wife did not care to bear them. But instead of growing closer, as one might have expected, they were set apart and eventually against each other by the circumstances. Edinja had never liked or trusted her brother, even when she was very young, but she had never been given cause for this beyond what her instincts told her. Her brother was five years older than she, and had pursuits of his own to occupy his time. So, mostly, he ignored her.
But when she grew old enough to draw his attention—somewhere around the age of eleven or twelve—he began a systematic campaign of brutality. At first it was defined by small acts of cruelty practiced when no one was looking and later denied. An older and much better liar than she, he was able to refute her claims when she dared to make them. At that point, she was still small and unskilled and could not hold her own. But as the acts grew more frequent and more devastating—pets killed or made to disappear, special treasures ruined, sweets soiled in vile ways, and pain inflicted when they were alone and there was no one to intervene—she began to see that no one would save her if she did not save herself. Complaints to her father and stepmother were pointless. In the Orle family, you swam or sank on your own.
When her brother began to visit her bed at night, shortly after she turned thirteen, compelling her to perform unspeakable acts, she knew she could tolerate him no longer.
Her one advantage lay in his belief that she could not hurt him back, that she was too small and intimidated even to attempt it. But she had been growing up in other ways, especially in her innate understanding and gradual mastery of magic. There were writings and books on it tucked away in her father’s office that she discovered while he was away. Careful readings and experiments led to the happy discovery that she had a natural aptitude for magic—a practice that had been a part of the history of her family for many centuries. Trapped in a desperate situation with no allies to stand up for her, she found that magic gave her a new confidence and a sense of empowerment. Her parents and her brother did not have use of this skill, so she kept her own powers a closely guarded secret. What mattered was that, for the first time, she felt she could do what was needed to protect herself.
What she decided to do was to remove her brother from the picture entirely; otherwise he would keep tormenting her until he killed her. To prevent that from happening, she must find a way to eliminate him first. But she couldn’t let her father and stepmother know she was responsible. Her father doted on her brother and would never forgive her, no matter the reason.
Since misdirection followed by swift action had always been the solution to the problems of the Orle family, so it would be here.
She waited until they were vacationing in the countryside near the borders of the Eastland. They had a home there, one shared by various members of the Orle clan. There was another family visiting at the same time, bringing the number of visitors to nine. She took note of who was there, and she chose a cousin from the other family who was close in age to her brother and whom she liked no better to be her unwitting accomplice. She went to his sleeping chamber on the first night they arrived and seduced him. She would not have been able to do so before her brother’s unwanted advances, but she found it easy enough now. When they coupled and were close and intertwined, she used a magic she had been experimenting with for some time to subvert his mind and bend him to her will.